All of my Writing in one place.
Yes, these are all about one person. Quiet
Your relationships will crumble like cities left to ruin; the walls shall crack, the foundations shall sink, and soon, when you call their names, the echoes will stretch thin in the air—fading, faltering—until at last, they reply, not with warmth, but with distance: your voice was always sweeter when unheard, your presence lighter when left behind.
The connections once presumed stable are deteriorating—slowly, then all at once. Patterns emerge: responses grow delayed, conversations thin, presence becomes absence. I call their names, test the weight of them in my mouth, measure the silence that follows. When they do answer, it is with distance—words carefully spaced, meaning diluted. It sounds better that way, they say, as if I were an echo, as if I were always meant to fade.
He was beautiful. He was. Every time he caressed my cheeks, every time he said he could kiss me.
And he said, “She was beautiful.” I was. Every time I reciprocated his words, every time I let him fool me.
And I said, “He was beautiful.” He was. Every time he laughed, every time he grew distant, every time he left me to cry alone, every time he watched me bleed and all he did was smile and give me a pat on the shoulder—every time he tried to make me worse.
And he said, “She was beautiful.”
I wasn’t.
“Hello, beautiful.” “Hello, handsome.”
These are the words I expect. The words I wait for. The words that, if spoken, would confirm something—what, exactly, I am uncertain.
They are simple constructs, meaningless in isolation yet weighted with implication when exchanged. A call and response. A validation. A proof of recognition, of presence, of desire.
These are the words I want from his lips. These are the words I want to give in return.
Am I in love?
Why does love make me want to spread apart my flesh and leave my organs to sear in the sun? To pull myself open like a carcass left for carrion, ribs cracked wide, lungs fluttering in the wind—an offering, a surrender, a sacrifice?
Is this what it means to want? To crave something so deeply it demands proof? Love should be soft, they say. Love should be warmth, a gentle thing. But I do not feel gentleness. I feel the ache of exposure, the desperate need to be seen, to be taken apart piece by piece and still held together in someone else’s hands.
I want to know if love is real, if it exists outside my skin. So I tear it open. I give it sunlight, air, space to breathe.
And yet, no one ever reaches in.
Just kill me.
Kill me—take me apart. Peel back my skin, crack open my ribs, spill me into your waiting hands. Let me be nothing but a collection of pieces, rearranged to your liking.
I am all for you. My body, my breath, my marrow—yours. Devour me, unmake me, hollow me out until there is nothing left but the space I once filled. Let me linger beneath your fingernails, let me stain your lips, let me be yours in the only way that lasts.
Take me. Keep me. Don’t leave me whole.